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I don’t see myself as deeply superstitious, but I won’t walk under a ladder or clean my flat on the first day of the Lunar New Year. There’s a practical element to not walking under a ladder; not cleaning my flat on New Year’s day, however, is purely symbolic.

The house is closed up in preparation for my research trip: power points switched to off position, stray food tucked away in Tupperware containers, pot plants entrusted to friends, blinds pulled all the way across. A friend’s car is already packed and sitting in the driveway, ready to leave for the airport.

For the two weeks over the Christmas break I return to my parents’ home in Perth. Each day we peel and dice a large basin of fruit salad. Baby nephews gurgling on the living-room tiles, cousins sprawled asleep on the sofas; someone will be singing in the shower while my brother-in-law and my father take apart a bike on the verandah. A tiny knife makes exacting work.

Today I decide to walk up Raglan Street a bit later than usual. Because I am stressed I am seeking out slightly more extreme situations to distract myself. So, despite the late hour and lack of people I walk into the Collier Street park and lie down defiantly in the middle.

The land I inhabit, my family home, is a forest of sorts. This part of northern New South Wales was once cleared pasture, but my parents started planting before they even built the house, and nearly forty years on it’s a green jungle.